Posts by mpledger
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I'm quite annoyed at the judges decision in this case; particularly the aspect that it was only a playground fight.
College kids catch school buses outside where I work and one time a group of kids were hitting another kid. I decided that I couldn't stand by and do nothing and so I went up to them and told them what they were doing was assault and if they didn't stop I'd report them. They stopped doing it but just laughed at me. However, knowing I had the law on my side meant I could go and do that. Now that the judge has virtually said playground fights don't matter, I don't feel I have any kind of lawful backing to intervene in such a case again. If I go and tell them to stop and they say bugger off than what do I do? Wait until it looks like attempted murder?
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I read "Dirty Politics" on Friday - I wasn't particularly shocked by the vileness of the people involved as that had been talked about on all the blogs. The thing that astounded me was how all the people around Whale Oil, including the journalists just bought into his bully boy routine - National pollies whined to him "why are you attacking me?", the journos cosied up to him to get the quote or the leak. Even worse, the journalists were complicit in his gaining such power to bully and abuse by using him as a source.
Noone actually had the guts or integrity to take him on. And if the media can't take on a (supposedly) lone cannon than how can we get them to keep a well funded, large machine like the government to account.
Thankfully, someone in the end decided to take him on.
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Hard News: We can do better than this, in reply to Rosemary McDonald,
She was probably interviewed by Hager about the ACC/Pullar thing so knew something was coming.
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I think the Herald missed the satire as well....
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Finally someone who has written something worth reading about this silly little man and his silly little book. Necky Hogget (I think that's right) is an attention seeker, a man who would string any two statements together to make a conspiracy. The real injustice is that this man gets so much air time when he chooses to shock the world with his waffle. Time to move on and let reality settle back over us.
FORUM EDITOR'S NOTE: This article is satire. He is not supporting the National Party.
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Hard News: Dirty Politics, in reply to Steve Barnes,
when Alfie said this
Alfie> Unbelievable! I see the Herald has added this line to several posts.
“FORUM EDITOR’S NOTE: This piece is satire. He is not defending the National Party.”SB> Indeed, had to comment myself on that. The fact that some commentators take this seriously speaks volumes.
It just shows that the media space has been so corrupted that people can’t recognise satire. They just recognise it as normal Nat speak.
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So what happens if an excerpt of the book appears in the newspaper? Once it's in the newspaper does it become "news" and therefore does the book become protected? Or just the excerpt (and the notes pertaining to the excerpt) become protected.
What happens to the author if he refuses to release the material to KDC? Will he get charged under the privacy act for refusing to comply? What are the charges and penalties?
There is a journalistic imperative that a journalist must protect his/her sources. It will be interesting to see how this plays out.
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Hard News: The sphere of influence, in reply to Paul Campbell,
> > They’ll still do it. They’ll just hide it better.
> Well that’s the easy part to deal with , you make every dollar accountable
The problem is with giving services in kind e.g. suppose a rich guy jets in from England and dumps money on a polling company so it can do polling in the week before the election for the benefit of one political party - the benefit is all for the political party but the money never directly goes through the party accounts. These types of things are hard to pick up.
(But I agree that every kind of donation should be recorded and made publicly available.)